In this comprehensive introduction, Anne-Michelle Tessier examines how we acquire the sounds and sound patterns of language. Analyzing child speech patterns and their analogues among adult languages while also teaching the basics of Optimality Theory, this novel textbook will help students develop a broad grammatical understanding of phonological acquisition. Phonological Acquisition provides - Evidence to support theory from multiple language families, populations and data collection methods - Connections to lexical, morphological and perceptual learning Assuming only a basic knowledge of phonology, this textbook is aimed at students of linguistics, developmental psychology, speech pathology and communication disorders. It will also be of interest to professional psychologists, acquisition researchers, clinicians, and anyone concerned with child speech development.

This book presents Error-Selective Learning (ESL), an error-driven model of OT phonological acquisition in which is both restrictive and gradual. Together, these two properties provide a model that can derive many attested intermediate stages in phonological development, while also understanding how learners eventually converge on the target grammar. ESL is restrictive because it relies on a restrictive ranking algorithm (Prince and Tesar 2004; Hayes 2004) to learn from its errors. At the same time ESL is gradual, because it uses a novel method for selecting errors that drive minimal changes to the grammar from each developmental stage to the next. The book synthesizes the existing arguments for BCD algorithms, presents the mechanics and rationale behind Error-Selective Learning, and provides cross-linguistic support for the ESL approach via attested intermediate stages of L1 phonological development. The book's results also emphasize the crucial roles for stored errors, throughout the slow and extended process of building a new phonology.